\chapter{Game Experiment}\label{GameTest}
To test the efficiency of delivering asymmetric information through vibrations in \textit{Flow Hunters}, a second experiment was conducted. The following explains the setup of the experiment and provides an analysis of the findings that will then be concluded upon.

\section{The Game Setup}
The experiment was conducted using the game developed for the experiment. To get an authentic setting for the experiment, four participants were tested at a time in order to capture the "couch gaming feel". The participants were seated side by side in a couch in front of a projection screen (see Figures \ref{fig:Game_Test}, \ref{fig:gameTest1} and \ref{fig:gameTest2}). It was set up in such a way as to provide a relaxed experience, giving opportunity for interaction between the test participants. The experiment was conducted on a total of 32 participants, all students at Aalborg University. The experiment was controlled and run by two test facilitators.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.80\textwidth]{Pictures/Design/Game_Test}
\caption{In total, 32 test participants played the game. Each session consisted of four players.}
\label{fig:Game_Test}
\end{figure}

The experiment consisted of three stages:

\begin{enumerate}
\item Explaining the game
\item Playing the game
\item Questionnaire and semi-structured discussion
\end{enumerate}

In the first stage, the test participants were instructed on how the experiment was to be conducted as well as given a general introduction to the game's controls and objectives. An in-game tutorial gave the test participants a feel of how the vibration patterns would deliver information. This was to eliminate potential confusion and prepare the participants of what to expect. As in the controller experiment described in Section \ref{controllerExperiment}, it was important that everybody got a common reference point about the vibrations.

In the second stage, the test participants played through two rounds of the game, each having a duration of 200 seconds. The duration of the rounds was set to give the participants a chance to explore the game's mechanics. During each round, the test facilitators retreated to the back of the room and observed and took notes of the participants' interactions with each other. The facilitators would only interfere if technical problems occurred that would disrupt the gameplay.

\begin{figure}[htbp] \centering
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[width=0.80\textwidth]{Pictures/Design/gameTest1} % Venstre billede
\end{minipage} \hfill
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[width=0.80\textwidth]{Pictures/Design/gameTest2} % Højre billede
\end{minipage} \\ % Captions og labels
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.45\textwidth}
\caption{Test participants playing the game.} % Venstre caption og label
\label{fig:gameTest1}
\end{minipage} \hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.45\textwidth}
\caption{Test participants playing the game.} % Højre caption og label
\label{fig:gameTest2}
\end{minipage}
\end{figure}

In stage three, after having played the game, the participants were asked to answer a questionnaire investigating their experience with the vibrations in the game (see Appendix C). To get a deeper understanding of the participants' experience, a semi-structured discussion was conducted. Here, the facilitator would open with a set of questions to start a discussion among the participants, where they could speak freely and give feedback in regards to the vibrations, the game and its mechanics.

Besides the notes taken by the facilitators, the game also logged data to a text file. This data consists of the number of times a player pressed to either receive his mission type or his target (D-pad up or D-pad down). Whenever either button was pressed, the time since the player received his current mission was logged. For instance, when a player receives his mission, he presumably presses the buttons to learn about his current mission type and target. Time would then be logged as e.g.\ 1.6 seconds. Then, later, if he forgets the mission and wants to get it repeated, he can press again and hear it a second time. Then, a new time would be logged, e.g.\ 23 seconds. Players can repeat this as many times as they need to. Furthermore, it logged how many missions each player completed prior to a button press.

This occurred for all the players throughout the game.

\section{Analyzing the Data}

To clarify if the concept of delivering asymmetric information through vibrations is feasible in a gaming context, the \textit{interval} vibration pattern was tested in the fast-paced game \textit{Flow Hunters}, for investigating to which degree it can be adapted. This experiment has been designed to see if a correlation occurs between the data from the previous neutral controller experiment and this game-based experiment. Each of the criteria listed in Section \ref{VibrationCrit} will also be evaluated for their performance in this experiment. The evaluation will be based on a questionnaire, which is answered through Likert scales. The test participants were asked to give a grade between 1 and 5 where 1 corresponds to \textit{Strongly disagree} and 5 corresponds to \textit{Strongly agree}. Note that in this section, the word \textit{vibration} will refer to the \textit{interval} vibration pattern. 

Note that all graphs in the following are based on averages.

Regarding the concealment of the vibrations, participants were asked to rate themselves with the following statements: \textit{I was not distracted by the other test participants' vibrations} and \textit{I was not aware of the other test participants' vibrations}. The results are shown in Figure \ref{fig:1GamePerceptionOfAwareness&Distraction}.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.70\textwidth]{Pictures/Design/1GamePerceptionOfAwareness&Distraction}
\caption{Perception of awareness and distractions. Both almost have a perfect score. This indicates that the vibration pattern can be used to deliver asymmetric information.}
\label{fig:1GamePerceptionOfAwareness&Distraction}
\end{figure}

It seems like, in average, the participants were neither aware nor distracted by each others' vibrations. This concludes that the \textit{interval} vibration pattern can be utilized to deliver asymmetric information to players.

To investigate whether or not the test participants felt like they could tell the vibrations apart from each other, they were asked to rate themselves on the statement \textit{I think the vibrations were easy to distinguish from each other}. The results are shown in Figure \ref{fig:4GamePerceptionOfVibrationDistinguish}.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.70\textwidth]{Pictures/Design/4GamePerceptionOfVibrationDistinguish}
\caption{It can be seen that all players in general understood the vibration pattern independently of their experience with a game controller. Note that none of the participants rated their experience level as 2.}
\label{fig:4GamePerceptionOfVibrationDistinguish}
\end{figure}

It appears as if the participants had a good understanding, indicating that the vibration patterns are easy enough to understand independently of how much experience participants had with game controllers. All participants graded their understandings above 3, and participants with more experience using a game controller rated themselves a little higher. Figure \ref{fig:3GamePerceptionOfUnderstandingVibrations} further proves that participants felt that they understood the vibrations the first time they received them.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.70\textwidth]{Pictures/Design/3GamePerceptionOfUnderstandingVibrations}
\caption{In general, the test participants seemed able to decode the vibration types fairly easy.}
\label{fig:3GamePerceptionOfUnderstandingVibrations}
\end{figure}

In order to further support the statements made by the participants in the questionnaire, the amount of times the players pressed buttons on the controller to receive missions has been logged. The results can be seen in Figure \ref{fig:GameAverageCountOfMissionReceived}.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.90\textwidth]{Pictures/Design/GameAverageCountOfMissionReceived}
\caption{Amount of times players pressed to receive information about their mission type and target. The mission type and target that together received the highest number of button presses is the \textit{intel mission}, and the lowest is the \textit{defend mission}.}
\label{fig:GameAverageCountOfMissionReceived}
\end{figure}

On average, each mission type and target is pressed about two times. The mission that has received most button presses is the \textit{intel mission}, and the lowest is the \textit{defend mission}. Since players do not need to feel the vibrations more than twice on average, they seem to be able to decode the vibrations at a high success rate. 

Finally, it was important to examine how long it took players to react (by pressing either D-pad up or D-pad down) when receiving new missions. This was logged and can be seen in Figure \ref{fig:6GameAverageTimeToPressForNewMission}. It should be noted that the first mission players receive is excluded, since the game has not begun at that point. Furthermore, the number on top of each bar shows how many players have completed the amount of missions shown on the X-axis.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.90\textwidth]{Pictures/Design/6GameAverageTimeToPressForNewMission}
\caption{Time spent reacting on new missions. On the X-axis, the graph shows how many missions players have completed. The Y-axis shows how many seconds it has taken them to react. The number on top of each bar shows how many times players have completed the amount of missions shown on the X-Axis. The orange dotted line is a trend line.}
\label{fig:6GameAverageTimeToPressForNewMission}
\end{figure}

By looking at the trend line in Figure \ref{fig:6GameAverageTimeToPressForNewMission}, it can be seen that players press on the D-Pad to receive their mission type or target faster over the count of missions they have completed beforehand. This indicates that people get better at using the system the more they utilize it.

%Since it has now been established that the participants had a good understanding of the vibrations themselves, further questions were asked to investigate how well they understood the individual missions. Figure \ref{fig:3GamePerceptionOfUnderstandingVibrations} shows that, in average, they had a decent understanding of the missions. Only the \textit{defend mission} seemed to cause some difficulties. This might be because the mission itself is somewhat different compared to the other missions, since there is no primary gameplay mechanic to use in order to complete the mission. While the \textit{kill mission} is about shooting other players, the \textit{defend mission}, is more about being trying to prevent players from killing one's target by trying to lure them away. It seems that this concept should maybe have been better explained in the game.
%
%\begin{figure}[htbp]
%\centering
%\includegraphics[width=0.70\textwidth]{Pictures/Design/3GamePerceptionOfUnderstandingVibrations}
%\caption{blabla}
%\label{fig:3GamePerceptionOfUnderstandingVibrations}
%\end{figure}
%
%HER SKAL VI SKRIVE NOGET MERE
%average number of times review:
%intel varer længe
%MANGLER average duration af missioner
%
%average time in secs took to press up/down:
%jo flere missioner, desto hurtigere reaktionstid
\section{Concluding on the Game Experiment}
As a preliminary experiment, an experiment in a neutral context, and an experiment in a gaming context have been conducted and analyzed, a conclusion between them can be made.

When referring to findings in the controller experiment, it should be noted that it is only in regards to the vibration pattern \textit{interval}, which was chosen for further investigations.

One of the criteria for the vibration was its \textit{concealment}. This was tested in both the preliminary experiment, controller experiment, and also the game experiment. In the preliminary and game experiment, the data pointed towards the players not noticing each others' vibrations, thereby allowing for asymmetric information. In the controller experiment, the results showed players being more aware and distracted by each others' vibrations, even though there were no major differences. See Figure \ref{fig:PerceptionOfSecrecyAndNoise} and Figure \ref{fig:1GamePerceptionOfAwareness&Distraction} for comparison. Note that the figures show the data inverse to each other.

For the players to be able to understand the coded information given to them, the vibrations need to be distinguishable from one another to avoid temporal masking \textit{(see Section \ref {Theory})}. From the controller experiment, it can be seen in Figure \ref{fig:LoggingOfCorrectButtonPress} that the \textit{interval} vibration pattern received an almost perfect score, thereby indicating that it was possible to distinguish its vibrations. The test participants in the game experiment were asked to state if they could perceive the vibrations individually (see Figure \ref{fig:4GamePerceptionOfVibrationDistinguish}). It can be concluded that they did not seem to have a problem telling them apart, even when measured up against the assessment of their experience with a traditional game controller.

To see if the test participants understood what the vibrations they received meant, they were asked in the controller experiment to assess the difficulty of the vibrations. In Figure \ref{fig:PerceptionOfDifficulty}, it can be seen that \textit{interval} received a high score, meaning the participants did not think of it as difficult to understand. Furthermore, in the game experiment, the test participants were asked if they understood what the vibrations meant the first time they were presented to them. The results in Figure \ref{fig:3GamePerceptionOfUnderstandingVibrations} show a high understanding rate of the vibrations in general.

In extension of understanding a vibration, a reaction is required by the test participants. For the controller experiment, the pure reaction time is looked into. Figure \ref{fig:ReactionTimeMinusRumbleDuration} illustrates the fact that players can recognize the pattern of \textit{interval} and react to it just as the vibration ends. This gives an average reaction time of just over 2 seconds, from the start of the vibration. When compared with Figure \ref{fig:LoggingOfCorrectButtonPress}, it can further be said that participants knew exactly which of the variations of the pattern it was.

For the game experiment, it was logged how long it took the players to press to receive the vibration pattern for a new mission the first time. Figure \ref{fig:6GameAverageTimeToPressForNewMission} gives an overview of how long it took over the course of having completed a different number of missions. It can be seen that players reduce the time it takes to react and thereby show improvement as they complete more missions. On average, it takes the players just under 5 seconds to react to receiving a new mission, which is about 150 percent slower than in the controller experiment. This might be due to the fact that in the game experiment, the player is exposed to more information and thereby cannot solely concentrate on this aspect.

Overall, there seems to be a correlation between the findings of the controller experiment and the game experiment. The only outlier is the reaction speed, which could have been expected with the additional information added when put in a game. It should be noted again that these findings only apply to the instance of this report and have not been tested on other games than \textit{Flow Hunters}.  